


Tired

by ChettaDrabbles (KOranges)



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Deals With Some Shit (TM), Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes-centric, M/M, Memories, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 14:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11255097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KOranges/pseuds/ChettaDrabbles
Summary: He knew that one day the Winter Soldier was going to find him. It was a matter of time. There was nothing he could do to stop him, only hope that what had been done to him would be him time. But being honest, he was tired. He was old. He knew what he had done and he was ready to pay for it.





	Tired

**Author's Note:**

> Each of these drabbles are inspired by a prompt I received during an eight month long writing challenge. I'll only be sharing my favorites but every Tuesday & Thursday and I'll post a new one.
> 
> Prompt: "Some people are so good at disappearing that you start to doubt your memories that they were ever there."

The last of the coffee in the pot was burnt and disgusting, but Mikhail drank it anyway. He was in desperate need of caffeine. His bosses had refused any of his, admittedly quiet and meek, requests for sleep or rest or even a break. Instead, they had him working double and triple shifts. It had been days since he’d seen the inside of his own eyelids.

“You’re a young man,” his boss teased him, “This should not be problem for you.”

“Perhaps the work is too hard for such a young man,” Another boss considered.

“No, Commandant,” Mikhail nodded emphatically. Then, realizing what he was doing and that he was betraying his own reservations, stopped that movement and started shaking his head. Mikhail swallowed the bile in the back of his throat. He knew that failure meant death. His soul had aged decades in the span of the last 72 hours. He didn’t feel young anymore; he felt decrepit and rotten. 

“The programming,” Karpov, his second boss, started, “Is it complete?”

Mikhail swallowed another surge of bile. “Not quite.”

“Then get back to it,” Karpov snapped. Mikhail scurried away, downing his coffee as he ran. The acidity ate away at the lining of his stomach. Or maybe it was an ulcer. The pain was getting more and more intense and could no longer be explained away by nerves. 

The Asset was kept behind a steel door so heavy that Mikhail couldn’t open it on his own. It took two guards on a crank to open it. The Asset was waiting, chained to a table in the freezing room without a single inch of clothing on. But it didn’t shiver. Or tremble. It's skin was pale from the cold but the Asset still didn’t appear to feel it at all. It's eyes were open and staring straight up at the ceiling. Unblinking. For a moment, Mikhail worried that the Asset had expired. Karpov would be displeased. He read the words anyway.

“Sit up,” Mikhail commanded. The Asset did so quickly. “Status?”

The Asset processed the question for a second. “Ready to comply.”

“Stand,” Mikhail motioned. It was clear portions of the Asset were still fighting. It seemed torn as it did finally stand. But it was with quick, jerky movements until it was standing as far away from the table as the chain would allow. Mikhail felt a pang of guilt for the Asset’s pained expression.

“Name?” Mikhail asked, pen at the ready over his notebook. He waited.

“None.” The Asset’s jew clenched and unclenched. Mikhail made a note of it.

“Allegiance?” Mikhail asked. The Asset caved forward slightly, it's breathing labored.

“Yours.” The Asset nodded finally, straightening to it's previous position.

They went through hours of similar exercises. They put the Asset in front of a screen that played hours of propaganda which would sway him to their side. Everything Mikhail could think of to reprogram a previously loyal American soldier. He was desperate. They were months into this project and the progress had been slow. Karpov came into his viewing booth and watched as the Asset sat blankly in front of the TV screens.

“Is it broken?” Karpov questioned.

“I believe so, Sir,” Mikhail nodded.

“The Asset will be of great service to the cause,” Karpov smirked slightly. Mikhail knew he was thinking only of the medals he would be awarded if this procedure was successful. “Have you  
attempted the final test again?”

“It killed three people last time we presented the Asset with that test,” Mikhail winced.

“Run it again,” Karpov ordered.

Mikhail didn’t want to. It felt cruel. But he moved through the process either way. It was a three step test. Only the first part put him in any danger. Mikhail swallowed and stepped into the  
examination room and turned off the television screens. 

“Steven Rogers is attacking us,” Mikhail told the Asset, his voice shaking. 

“Captain America?” The Asset’s brow furrowed as it struggled to place the name. The pain of the emotional and programmed response caused it to cringe.

“Yes,” Mikhail nodded. He hoped his sigh of relief hadn’t been a tell.

“He is…” The Asset trailed off, face contorted and eyes squeezed shut. Mikhail held his breath and waited. There was a long pause as the Asset struggled to move it's mouth to form the words he needed to say. “Captain America is…”

“Your target,” Mikhail finished for him firmly. The Asset’s eyes were wide and pained.

“Ready to comply,” The Asset said as it stood from the chair, shaking slightly and taking deep breaths through it's nose. Mikhail unlocked his chains with a trembling hand and had to stop his own terror from making him run from the room. The Asset did not move.

“Eliminate him,” Mikhail ordered.

He watched the Asset stomp from the room and followed shortly after. They had made it this far before, but Mikhail was helpful. He had made so much progress. The Asset worked down from their cell at the far end of the hall and cleared each room. There was a buzzing over the intercom as the second part of the test began. This was where they had always failed.

“Bucky,” the voice of Captain America- stolen from various movies and recordings- came over the intercom. The Asset froze. “Bucky, if you can hear me you need to fight. Fight them. I’m in  
the control room.”

Mikhail’s breathe caught in his throat as the Asset turned towards him with a snarl.

“If you want to live, proceed,” Mikhail hissed through his teeth. Panicking.

The Asset did not move.

"I will end this. The tests. The pain. I will stop them all," Mikhail swore quietly, "all you have to do is proceed. If you do not, you will be tortured and then killed."

Nothing. And then, finally, he twitched.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” The Asset asked finally.

There was deception behind his eyes but Mikhail didn’t note it in his little red notebook. The Asset could have that name, as long as he complied. The Asset was complying. Mikhail let out the breath that had been caught in his throat and tried to steady his shaking knees. They trembled helplessly. The Asset turned and walked towards the control room confidently. The signs of pain and labored breath that Mikhail had seen earlier were gone. He had to jog to keep up with Asset’s pace.

Mikhail hoped that Karpov had thought to clear the control room of their staff. Even if the Asset was now contained, they shouldn’t be so careless. If one of them were to be perceived by the  
Asset as a threat, Mikhail was fairly certain they would be in danger. Mikhail had programmed him that way.

They hadn’t cleared it, but the Asset didn’t fire on a soul. It's weapon was drawn and at the ready but none of the staff were the target. It didn’t fire. That wasn’t quite the programming Mikhail had aimed for but it was close enough to count as the second stage passed. Karpov was waiting in the next room and was alerted of the Asset’s progress. He walked into the room and stood in front of the Asset with a frown, and gestured for Mikhail to read from his notebook. The Asset's eyes glassed over as he did so.

“The threat has been eliminated,” Karpov told the Asset, “Stand down.”

The Asset lowered and holstered it's weapon in a single move and stood rigidly at attention.

Karpov smirked and turned towards Mikhail with a grin. Mikhail closed his notebook after noting the success and simply nodded at him.

“Well done,” Karpov nodded once. He frowned at the notebook. “Give that to me.”

Mikhail did. “Am I excused now, Sir? Am I finished with this assignment?”

“You are not,” Karpov shook his head as he flipped through the book, “You have just become the most important Doctor in this office. Go and lock it up for the night. Then you may sleep. Be back in the morning at 05:00. We have a mission.”

\------------------------------------------------------------

“Someone explain to me what is going on,” Mikhail roared angrily. He had an espresso in one hand and a cane in the other. He hobbled down the hallway and cursed the way his hip ached as  
he moved. None of the damn doctors he saw were worth a damn.

“The Asset…misbehaved,” One of Mikhail’s assistants claimed.

“The Asset does not misbehave because we did not program it to misbehave,” Mikhail snapped. Forty years he had been caring for that particular Asset and never once had it done anything  
noticeably off protocol. “If there has been any aberrant behavior it is the fault of one of you imbecile’s I’ve been told I have to leave in charge.”

“He deviated from his mission,” The assistant claimed, trembling in front of him.

"It is not a 'HE', lieutenant. It is an it." Mikail snapped. Then he paused. “How so?”

“They’d sent him- it- to the United States. Some standard elimination op. But it didn’t report in. Then the Asset was found miles away from the target in another state.” Mikhail reached for a  
mission file while the assistant rambled on.

“Which state?”

“New York,” she answered quietly.

Mikhail sighed sadly and motioned for her to leave him. The Asset was in containment and Mikhail would have to wipe and reprogram him, at the very least. It was never a pleasant  
experience. He walked into the cell and the chair that the Asset was chained to. It looked up at Mikhail and a glimmer of angry, furious recognition flickered behind it's eyes. Mikhail winced  
away from it.

The Asset looked so different than it had years ago. Rougher. His face was scruffy from his week on the run. Mikhail would need to have him cleaned and shaved. His hair was kept long because it was easier to maintain than having to coordinate regular cuts and trims. But the thing that had never changed was the stare. It had so unnerved him when they’d first turned the Asset. His angry and defiant stare hadn’t so much as dimmed over the decades. Mikhail felt a certain fondness for the spirit that had never died.

“I suppose this means you remember who I am,” Mikhail told him quietly.

The Asset only snorted and cursed at him in Russian. Mikhail clicked his tongue.

“I am afraid I know how you feel all too well,” Mikhail whispered, “But hush.”

The Asset grumbled, but Mikhail hushed it again. “They have ears everywhere now.” 

There was a pile of items that the Asset had been found with on the corner. One of them was a movie ticket. Captain America. The report had said they found him at a movie theater. Another  
was a notebook, full of scribbles and scraps of paper. Mikhail sighed and closed his eyes. He’d have to put it with the others. The Asset’s success had been his greatest lie and it was crumbling down around him on the eve of his retirement.

“We have had a good run,” Mikhail whispered to the Asset, “But I think it’s done now.”

His assignment on the Winter Soldier Project defined his career. Opened doors. Hydra had protected him above most others. Even Karpov had, in the end, been left in the wind. New  
leadership meant new priorities. But the new leaders needed the Asset functioning and Mikhail was still the only scientist capable of controlling him. But none of them had ever guessed that it was less control and more…an agreement. Mikhail pulled up a chair and started working. He paused when he saw the way the Asset tensed. He hated the reprogramming as much as Mikhail did. Mikhail sighed and put a hand on the Asset’s cold metal arm.

“I am so tired.” Mikhail said on a deep shuddering breath. 

The Asset said nothing.

“I think it is time that we both have our rest.” Mikhail decided with a nod.

He ran the reprogramming protocol. It would leave the Asset compliant and confused for his next few missions. Until Mikhail was dead, if he was lucky. Because, if not, Hydra would discover his deception and he would be punished. Once he was finished he placed the Asset in cryostasis with additional directions. Wipe repeatedly. No state-side missions. Keep in cryostasis whenever possible.

He would have to hope it was enough.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exhaustion had set into Mikhail’s bones. He had never wanted to live this long. So far past his own usefulness. Long enough to see everything he had ever worked for burned. Everything had  
gone to shit. So when the Asset, except not the Asset but a man, arrived on his doorstep with a weapon and a long list of questions, Mikhail was not surprised. He invited Bucky Barnes in for  
tea just to test how he would respond. 

“I did tell them not to give you any American missions,” Mikhail said with a shake of his head, “but Pierce could be so single minded. Never liked to listen to anyone.”

“You made me,” Bucky said firmly.

“And if you remember that, you remember a lot more.” Mikhail nodded, not denying it.

“I failed my mission,” the Asset was still struggling to maintain programming.

“What was your mission?”

“Eliminate Captain America,” the Asset reported quickly. He swallowed.

Mikhail could say the words. Stop the Asset. He remembered them. Would never forget them. But he was an old, tired man. And he recognized the look in the Asset’s eyes of another old, tired man.

“I…remember…things. I don’t think I should,” the Asset was pacing in his living room.

“Are you requesting a reprogramming?”

“It hurts,” the Asset told him earnest. It was the most emotional sentence he’d ever heard the Asset say. “Is it real?”

“Is what real?” Mikhail wondered how much of the Asset’s mind had unraveled.

“The other me. Is he…” The Asset was breaking apart. He swallowed and nodded to force himself to keep going. “Is he real? Bucky Barnes? Did he exist?”

Mikhail nodded, “He did.”

“He’s me?”

“He’s who you were,” Mikhail shrugged, “before.”

There was a switch. He saw the Asset’s jaw tensed. “Before you got to me.”

“Before I turned you in to something more,” Mikhail reasoned with a snarl, “I made sure you stayed alive. I gave you life. I removed him. He was weak.”

The Asset lifted his gun again, “You turned me into a monster.”

“I didn’t make you anything that you weren’t already,” Mikhail said with a shrug.

“I should kill you,” the Asset took a step closer.

“If you were going to kill me, you would have done it before I knew you were here.” Mikhail snapped. “Do not play games with me. I am too old. I am too tired. I am not that lucky.”

The Asset was confused, “Lucky?”

“When you’ve done the things that I have, death’s the only thing that will bring peace.”

The Asset just stared at him. Mikhail remembered the fear that glare gave him when he was a young man but he did not feel it now. He did not fear he rage that the Winter Soldier possessed.  
He did not fear dying. The Asset lowered his weapon and Mikhail sighed in disappointment.

“Why are you here?”

“I wanted answers. You have them,” the Asset shrugged, “About who I am.”

Mikhail shrugged, “You are the Asset.”

“And what about Bucky Barnes?” Asked the Asset.

“You said it yourself. He has disappeared. Does he exist anymore?”

The Asset opened his bag and dropped two notebooks on the table. They were identical in every way except the front cover. Mikhail opened each of them in turn and read a few sentences before closing them and shaking his head.

“I thought I was going insane,” the Asset hissed. “But those are memories. They’re real.”

Mikhail smiled weakly. “Do you know how many notebooks you filled over the years? How many I burned? Always the same exact words. Always the same facts. I was never sure how  
much of him remained.”

The Asset said nothing, jaw clenching and unclenching repeatedly. The parts of his mind were warring with each other again. Mikhail saw the Asset’s hand go for the gun holster and then drop a few times. When he finally rested his hand on it, Mikhail’s eyes started to water.

“Please,” He whispered to the Asset, begging him. 

“I am so tired."

**Author's Note:**

> ((Reposting a work that was accidentally deleted. Don't mind me.))


End file.
